Broken Course (36 page)

Apparently, marry me does mean the same thing in Spanish.

"I’m going to be sick," I say from behind my hands.

Leo lets out a chuckle but stands back up and pulls me into his chest. "No puking," he breathes against my ear while rubbing his scruff against my cheek. "Here. Just let me hold you. Maybe that will be easier." He silently holds me for a few minutes as I try to compress the emotions into something more manageable but fail miserably. "You okay?" he whispers, and I shake my head. "Well I’m going to start talking. You let me know if you need to puke so I can at least get out of the way."

I can feel the smile on his lips as he kisses my neck.

"Sarah, I love you. I know I told you once that you saved my life, but oddly enough, that isn’t even the most spectacular thing you’ve ever done for me. I’ve lived a lot of years, and none of them have been as fulfilling as the last few months with you. You’ve given me back a life that I had long since given up on."

My hands begin to tremble between us. Leo only acknowledges it by squeezing me tighter before continuing to talk quietly into my ear.

"We have a long road ahead of us because of our pasts. We both still struggle on a daily basis, and I can’t swear to you that will ever stop. But it doesn’t feel impossible when I’m with you. You make me smile and laugh. You make things right even when the world feels completely wrong. Sarah, it’s easy to remember why I should open my eyes every morning when the first thing they see is you."

I hiccup a breath and lift a hand to cover my mouth again.

"You need to throw up or can I keep going?" he asks in the most romantic way one can ask such a question.

"Keep going," I whimper.

"I love that I’m able to be your rock even though, sometimes, I feel like I can barely support my own weight. But more than that, I love knowing that, even on my weakest days, you understand enough about how I’m feeling to be my rock also. We can do this, Sarah. I know you’re going to worry about jumping into a marriage, but you have to know I have never been more confident about something in my life. Individually, we’ve been through hell and lived to tell about it. Together, there isn’t a force in the world that could bring us down."

"Leo, I…" I start, but I’m afraid to even finish the sentence.

I DECIDED weeks ago that I was going to propose to Sarah. It never included a beach or her getting sick, but I knew I was going to do it. I’ve proposed in Spanish no less than twenty times since I made the decision. I proposed over breakfast when the light from the window twinkled in her ocean-blue eyes. I proposed on a random night after dinner when she got frustrated and began cussing because she couldn’t find the words to make me understand how we might benefit from time spent apart. I proposed in the middle of a heated game of Trivial Pursuit right before she cheated so I couldn’t get my final pie piece. I even once proposed in the middle of sex as I emptied myself inside her. But up until now, I’ve never had the balls to say it in English.

"Sarah Kate Erickson, will you marry me?"

She sucks in a deep breath but remains silent in my arms.

Asking a woman to marry you is terrifying, but I didn’t exactly go into this with visions of her screaming yes from the mountaintops. I knew this was going to be a hard sell. I also knew that I wouldn’t take no for an answer. We might be taking up residence on this square foot of the beach because I’m not budging until she agrees to be my wife.

"We’re right together. You know it just as much as I do," I say, hoping to convince her, but she only continues to cry. "
Ángel
, say something."

"I don’t know what to say," she tells my chest.

"Start with what part of this has you all worked up. Are you excited, nervous, scared?" I prompt as she begins to wiggle out of my arms

"What if I break you like I did Brett? What if that’s, like, my curse—I ruin men."

"And you think not marrying me will make me any less ruined? Sarah, if something happened to us, I would never be the same again, ring or not."

"This is a big commitment," she says, looking down at her feet.

"No. This is just us showing our friends and family how committed we already are. Tell me you can imagine a day where you don’t love me. If you can envision that, then I’ll let this go. Otherwise, I’m not leaving this beach without a yes."

Her eyes bounce around the night sky. I know she’s trying to work this out in her head, but Sarah doesn’t exactly have the best track record in that department. She’s going to make this into something dramatic and work herself into an over-the-top frenzy.

"Just listen to me—" I start to talk her down, but before I get all the words out, she renders them useless.

"Yes," she rushes out.

"Yes?" I question because I was definitely not expecting it to be that easy.

"I’m really scared, but you’re right. We’re better at this life thing together." She tosses me a tentative smile.

"Yes?" I repeat one more time just to make sure I’m not hearing things.

"
Sí
." She shrugs and starts laughing around the tears still flowing from her eyes.

I instantly take her mouth in a hard kiss. "Give me your hand." I reluctantly pull away long enough to retrieve the ring from my pocket. I swiftly slide the oversized ring onto her finger as if it could prevent her from changing her mind.

"Leo!" She gasps, running her fingers over the large, round diamond and down over the blue topaz stones I had embedded in the band itself. It was the closest thing to baby blue I could find. "It’s gorgeous."

"Just like you," I respond, only vaguely aware of how cliché it sounds.

"Are you sure about this? I mean, like, really, really sure?" she asks, looking up at me nervously, causing me to begin laughing all over again.

"I was ready to set up camp on this beach like Tom Hanks in
Cast Away
until you said yes. So I can say with absolute certainty that I’m ready for this."

"Shit. That would’ve made me Wilson." She sniffles.

"You have better hair." I smile wide, unable to wipe it from my face.

"I’m not going to lie, Leo. I’m glad that you are so optimistic about this because I’m really fucking worried." She pauses and begins inspecting her ring. "But I’m really fucking happy too."

"We’re going to be amazing, Sarah. I can feel it. Now, come on. Let’s go upstairs. Suddenly, I feel ready for something else too."

"No, wait. I have to call Emma and Casey. They are going to flip. Give me your phone. Let’s text them a picture of the ring." She begins wiping the mascara from under her eyes. I watch as she tries to capture the perfect picture of her ring using only the flash on my phone as light.

A half hour later, Sarah and I consummate our engagement in the hotel shower. My phone vibrates its way off the counter with incoming messages from not only Emma and Casey, but also Erica. However, as I bury myself in the woman who will forever be my wife, they all go unanswered.

THE MORNING after Leo proposed, we immediately started talking about getting married. He wasn’t keen on the idea of a long engagement. And while I may have been hesitant at first, once that ring was on my finger, I couldn’t wait to become Mrs. James. For the first time since the accident, everything actually
felt
right—including the imperfections in our relationship.

Leo and I decided to have a small ceremony in a few weeks. Just something intimate with our closest friends in attendance. Originally, he just wanted to rush to the courthouse as soon as we got back. That was until I reminded him that Erica would probably murder him in his sleep if she didn’t get to come to his wedding. He quickly agreed, and we sat down to set a date around his schedule.

We went over our finances on the plane ride home. It was really important to me to help contribute to our new life together. When Leo broke down his monthly bills for me, it became blindingly obvious that he made a hell of a lot more money than I did. I would have been lucky if I could even cover our electric and cell phone bills every month. I still had some money from the wreck, but it was dwindling quickly, and with overhead like Leo’s, it wasn’t going to get us far. I got panicky at the idea of depending on him for everything, but he squashed those fears by telling me that, by accepting his proposal, I had just signed on for a twenty-four-seven job at Guardian. I began to relax as I worked out the math of my new paycheck in my head while Leo laughed beside me.

The day we got back from Florida, Leo hired movers. I thought his head was going to explode when they told him it would be a few days before they could add us to their schedule. I giggled as he marched to my bedroom and dumped all my underwear into a box, mumbling something about how "home is where the panties reside." He also confiscated my keys so that I had to stay at his apartment until the move was final. He could have just asked. It’s not like I would have argued, but it was more entertaining watching him try to force me to stay with him.

When the movers finally came, it didn’t take long to empty my apartment since I didn’t have much to take with me. Leo has a house full of furniture, so we donated most of mine to the Building Foundations’s yard sale. They were more than appreciative.

"Leo, where did they put the stuff from my bathroom?" I ask, walking into
our
room just as the last mover leaves.

"I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess the bathroom? But come here. I have something for you."

"Mmm. Is it something new or something hard?" I ask seductively, swaying my hips as I walk toward him.

"Well, first, it’s something new.
Then
it’s something hard." He pulls me against his chest and presses his hips into mine. Walking backwards, he scoops up a bag next to the bed then leads me into the bathroom.

"So, now that we are living together—"

"And getting married," I add with a huge smile.

"And getting married," he confirms, "there are a few things you should know that I’m not willing to share." He pulls out a rectangular box from the bag. "This is your very own Kindle. No more borrowing mine. I swear, Sarah, I opened it the other day and there was a naked man on the cover of nearly every book in my library."

I let out a quiet laugh. He’s not wrong. I’ve been reading a lot more recently, and every single day, Casey sends me a new recommendation. It’s not my fault they all have half-dressed men on the covers. Okay, fine, I might buy them exactly for that reason.

"Well, you didn’t have to do that. But thank you. I’ll put it to good use." I give him a quick kiss and throw in an ass grope, well…just because I can.

"Secondly,"—he opens the bathroom closet, revealing a shelf full of my body wash—"you stink. Take a shower."

"Excuse me?" I cross my arms over my chest.

"I know you ran out of body wash while we were in Florida, but you are not allowed to use mine anymore. You smell like me…and I hate it." He gives me a serious look but returns the ass grope.

"I like the way you smell." I make a show of sniffing his shirt, but he ignores me.

"And lastly, here are the forms from the bank I need you to fill out in order to add you to my checking account."